Stranger than fiction

[trinityvixen]

I watched the press conference with Governor Sanford yesterday. It was one of the worst attempts to defuse a situation as ever I saw. I understand that he's supposed to be "unconventional," and many of his constituents probably prize shooting from the hip over practiced, careful speechifying, but it was just embarrassing to watch.

It takes this article four paragraphs to get to the Gov's official declaration, which, believe me, is three times faster than Sanford managed. When one is caught in obvious shenanigans, the best thing to do is come forward and say, upfront, what's been going on. Instead, he meandered through all the plausible reasons why he might have disappeared for a week, apologized to friends, family, and voters, mentioned a reporter he'd had a run-in with at the Atlanta airport, and then copped to being out of the country on a booty call. He then went into embarrassing detail about how he'd met this person innocently at first, and how that had changed, and so on and so forth. Dude, you're here to tell people why you up and vanished without leaving your contact information, not trace your every thought process since your affair started. Great, you cheated on your wife; we do not need the play-by-play. (Unless it's going to lead to awkward questions like it did in Senator Ensign's case where he might have paid his mistress more, with GOP funds, while he was schtupping her and fired her when the affair was over.)

Of course, the real "news" here is that Sanford was a 2012 presidential hopeful and that looks like it won't be happening any more. I hope that such dashing of his chances happen for the right reason--for the fact that the executive leader of an entire state went AWOL and didn't think to make any provisions (like talking to the Lt. Gov!!!) to deal with state business while he was away. I don't give a shit who you boned unless your boning breaks the law (which, possibly, Ensign's firing of his mistress could have done--his paying her more while she had sex with him doesn't look great either). But you cannot just abandon your post as president. You want ass? Call up Hugh Hefner, go to Camp David, shag your weekend away, but for the love of the great noodly one, STAY IN TOUCH.

Comments

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Craig was being prosecuted for a crime. I'm not sure that Vitter gets to skate on prostitution if Spitzer does not.

Bottom line, only those who commit crimes can be legally removed from office, sex or no sex. But the ones that stand their shrieking about family values while bending those values over a chair? Deserve very little patience or sympathy. I don't care if you cheat, but as bigscary points out above, if you make my private business your business, I'll return that favor in kind. And you'll totally deserve it.

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

Oh, agreed. Note that there's also another distinction; Spitzer and Sanford are both executives, while Craig and Vitter are legislators. For some incomprehensible reason, we have much higher standards for executives. Also note the significant number of Democratic financial criminals in Congress (Rangel, Jefferson), and felons on both sides in the New York Assembly.

I'm all for getting rid of Sanford for the crime of unbelievable stupidity, if nothing else. I'm just saying that it's not like Republicans are getting some special privilege to fool around.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

We agree on most points here. I don't get why being in one line versus another makes infidelities less/more problematic--if it's a problem, period, should it matter if you're an assemblyperson or president? Sanford is a particular brand of idiot whose inability to navigate the call-and-response script of an apology for being, gosh!, human is more troubling than any affair.